In October Eguia advanced with this army a short way into La Mancha; but when the French, unwilling to lose the resources of that fertile province made a movement towards him, he regained the Sierra Morena on the 16th, taking post, first at St. Elena, and finally at La Carolina. The first and fourth corps then occupied the whole of La Mancha, with advanced posts at the foot of the mountains; the second and fifth corps were established in the valley of the Tagus and at Toledo; and the reserve at Madrid. During these movements, Bassecour, who commanded in Estremadura, detached eight hundred horsemen to reinforce the duke Del Parque, and quartered the rest of his forces behind the Guadiana. Thus in the latter end of October, there were sixty thousand men, under Eguia, covering Seville by the line of La Mancha; ten thousand under Bassecour on the line of Estremadura, and about six thousand employed as guards to the Junta and in the service of the depôts behind the Morena. [Sidenote: See Vol. II. p. 427.] In the north, the Spanish army of the left was concentrated near Ciudad Rodrigo. For when Beresford marched down the Portuguese frontier to the Tagus, the duke Del Parque, reinforced with the eight hundred cavalry from Estremadura, and with the Gallician divisions of Mendizabel and Carrera, (amounting to thirteen thousand men, completely equipped from English stores, brought out to Coruña in July,) made a movement into the rugged country, about the Sierra de Francia, and sent his scouting parties as far as Baños. At the same time general Santocildes, marching from Lugo with two thousand men, took possession of Astorga, and menaced the rear of the sixth corps, which after forcing the pass of Baños, had been quartered between the Tormes and the Esla. In this situation, a French detachment attempted to surprise one of the gates of Astorga, on the 9th of October, and, being repulsed, returned to their cantonments. Soon afterwards Ballasteros, having again collected about eight thousand men in the Asturias, armed and equipped them from English stores, and, coming down to Astorga, crossed the Esla, and attempted to storm Zamora. Failing in this, he entered Portugal by the road of Miranda, and from thence proceeded to join the duke Del Parque. Thus the old armies of Gallicia and the Asturias being broken up, those provinces were ordered to raise fresh forces; but there was in Gallicia a general disposition to resist the authority of the Central Junta. Del Parque, eager to act against the sixth corps, demanded, through Perez Castro the Spanish envoy at Lisbon, that the Portuguese army should join him; but this being referred to sir Arthur Wellesley, he gave it a decided negative, grounding his refusal upon reasons which I shall insert at large, as giving a clear and interesting view of the military state of affairs at this period. [Sidenote: Letter from Sir A. Wellesley, Sept. 23, 1809. MS.]